Harry Potter and the Fall
by Jaing
Summary: Just one difference in a timeline can change everything. Draco actually left the school, most of the Slytherin students joined their parents in the attacking Death Eater horde - and Harry's world burned. / Re-write of "Harry Potter and the Dawn of Honor", a previous crossover fic of mine. Honor is no longer a part of the story.
1. Chapter 1: The Castle Crumbling

**Story Title: Harry Potter and the Fall**

**Rating: M  
**

**Author: Jaing  
**

**Contains magitech.  
**

**A/N:  
**

**Hello all. This is my attempt at rewriting HPatDoH - which apparently, for all my lack of ability to properly write Honor, is a good story. Let's see how it fares now without her, shall we?  
**

_**Chapter 1: The Castle Crumbling**_

The skies were dark, and clouds covered the moon. The air was hushed except for the wind - not one animal, not one creature of the night bayed, yelped, sang or roared. Atop the mountaintop lay a castle, a wonderful, beautiful structure of masonry, sky-scraping turrets, high arched windows and stained glass. A magical place. The castle was known as Hogwarts, and it was truly a magical place, for it was the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Within it, students milled about, though no laughter chimed the hallways; no gossip sang through the air, conveyed by boys and girls alike. Professor Slughorn escorted most of one group of student through a portal in an ever-changing room to safety; the majority of the rest were preparing to fight.

Siblings hugged, crying; The younger ones knew that their older brothers and sisters might never come home again, never tell them goodnight, never argue with them and their parents, never laugh or cry again. The older ones lamented all they stood to lose, but they also knew their cause was just - the evil that lay outside these hallowed halls had to be stopped, or all they knew and loved might fail and be destroyed. So they sent their little brothers and sisters through the portal, knowing full well they might never see them again, because they could not bear the thought of their dying, or their families' deaths.

Teachers divided up the older children, and set them to tasks, fortifying the castle and preparing for war. The castle's suits of armor came alive, marching in their silent regiments and divisions with ancient weapons in hand, down through the hallways towards Professor McGonagall and the castle's main door, a massive oaken construction nearly a thousand years old. Professor Flitwick wove a tapestry of defensive spells worthy of Merlin himself, creating a bubble of magical shielding that covered every inch of the castle.

But while all this preparation was going on, three students destroyed an artifact of the enemy's power ahead of the ordained time, and everything in that universe changed forever. And as Hermione smiled broadly at Harry, holding a basilisk fang in one hand and a destroyed diadem at her side, all hell broke loose.

Outside the walls, a vast horde lay in waiting to assault the castle, and almost as one their wands flared with destructive energy and spells arced from their tips. Like thousands of miniscule suns, the spells rose and fell in the air, a howitzer barrage of hatred and death. And then they hit the shield; the night lit up like daytime as tiny stars were born and then died on the shield. But it held. Another barrage, and it held. On the third, cracks started to form in the shielding - the upper portions completely vanished, and occasional spells impacted the tallest tower and let masonry rain upon the grounds below. The students and teachers in the tower shielded it as best they could, and it, too, held.

Then, the rest of the horde began to advance.

Not all of the Dark Lord's forces were witches and wizards; he counted among his allies mountain trolls and giants, giant spiders, deadly werewolves, vampires and Dementors. Those of his wizards who were more close-combat inclined rushed forward with the other creatures, flinging curses into the shielding as they advanced towards it. More holes appeared in it, and Neville Longbottom smiled grimly as they began to advance on his chosen side bridge. His wandtip was pointed at a bundle on the bridge's supports, and he waited.

Other portions of the horde advanced on the castle's main approach, a massive stone arch-bridge that was the quickest route to the heart of the structure. On that bridge, they met the armies of suits, and a slaughter on both sides commenced as the suits waded through trolls and spiders, and the giants returned the favor, wading through the suits while wizards blasted them with spells. Crashes and booms reverberated across the grounds, explosions casting their eye-tearing brilliance upon the world as buildings and bridges alike shook like the Earth itself were attacking them.

Neville waited until the Dark Horde was three quarters of the way across the bridge, and then... "Incendio!" he whispered, and a ball of fire scorched through the air into the bundle while he stood and ran, pursued by the spells of the Death Eaters on the bridge... but only for a moment, for when the fire-spell hit, the entire bridge exploded, and Neville continued running, whooping with excitement and laughing as he sped away as fast as his feet could carry him.

But the war at the front of the castle fared far worse. As the last suit died, spells rained from the towers all around onto the Dark Horde. Giants picked up boulders and rubble, and Death Eaters raised their wands, and both threw or fired faster than any normal being should have a right to. Spells and stones crashed into the ancient building, destroying the protective masonry and exposing the all-too-vulnerable defenders within - and they began to die. McGonagall and Lupin began their retreats into the castle, up the stairs to the seventh floor.

Harry, Ron and Hermione rushed into the Great Hall just as this was happening, smiles long since having been erased at the sounds of combat and death. The first thing Harry saw was Ginny locked in combat with Lucius Malfoy, and his blood boiled as he raised his wand, only to lower it again when Ginny finally landed a hex, cuts erupting all over Lucius' body, soaking the ground with blood.

"ALL STUDENTS TO THE SEVENTH FLOOR! ALL STUDENTS TO THE SEVENTH FLOOR!" boomed McGonagall's voice, and Harry, Ron and Hermione began to fight their way through to the staircase, raining curses and fury upon the Dark Horde forces before and beside them, fighting as the perfect team. Where one was weak, another took up the slack. Where one was strong, the others supported them and made the group, as a whole, virtually invincible.

But where they were mowing through the forces of the Dark Lord, their classmates were not. Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and Slytherins alike died under the wands, teeth and clubs of the enemy; Cho Chang went down under the jaws of a werewolf, latched to her throat- her last, dying act was to direct all her rage and hate, pain and sorrow into clearing her mind and thinking two words, "_AVADA KEDAVRA!" _as she jammed her wand into its' belly, and as Bellatrix Lestrange once pointed out, you have to _mean _it- and she did. Thus ended the lives of Cho Chang and Fenrir Grayback. One a hero, the other less than dirt.

When they reached the seventh floor corridor with the Room of Requirement, McGonagall was waiting with the rest of the survivors, shuffling them through the portal to the Hog's Head as fast as they could. The old woman was clearly in pain at the sight of her beloved castle in flames, and it showed in her spellcasting. The most vicious possible curses and transfigurations flowed from her wandtip, and the Death Eaters in the great hallway below targeted her especially. But for all her advanced age, none could stand against her for long and live.

Harry ran down the corridor, turning to fling curses down the staircase every so often to stymie their pursuers, and skidded to a stop infront of the door, caught from falling by both of the Weasley twins. "I think that's everyone!" Fred shouted as Ron and Hermione filed into the room, and Harry went to the door to help pull it shut. But just as the door was about to close, a small redheaded figure rounded the corner in a flat-out sprint, legs and arms pumping faster than an engine piston.

"WAIT!" Ginny shouted, as Angelina Johnson and Seamus Finnigan followed her hot on her heels, on either side of her, Death Eaters following closely behind them. Harry slammed his shoulder into the door, adrenaline providing him strength he usually didn't have; he beckoned them in, and the trio put on more speed, running for the safety of the room.

Bellatrix Lestrange suddenly loomed from the crowd, and a sickly violet curse flew from her wand and flew towards them. Harry opened his mouth to shout a warning, but it arrived before he could begin to speak, and Ginny fell, skidding to a stop in a crumpled heap on the floor as the other two flew apart, slamming into the walls on either side of her.

For Harry, time stood still about him as he moved, shouting Ginny's name. He stopped in front of her, and the air crackled with lightning and the smell of ozone. Light splintered down his wand, sixty four channels of blue energy spilling towards the wandtip, the purest manifestation of its owner's deadly fury. "_Confringo!_" Harry roared, and a blue-white ball of energy slammed down the hallway, through the torrent of return fire, and directly into Bellatrix Lestrange's chest.

Ron, Hermione and the Twins joined Harry, carrying the fallen into the Room of Requirement, all the while keeping up a steady hail of Blasting Curses and Tripwire Jinxes to slow the Death Eaters' advance. The doors finally slammed shut and they went through the portal, the door to the Room vanishing to the outside world finally as they reached the Hog's Head, the fallen students carried between them.

Only then did they look about themselves, and the tense students occupying the Hog's Head were blast-scarred, bleeding, charred and defeated. Tear tracks ran down most of their faces, and a number of them had the wide-eyed look of a shell-shocked person.

"We've lost..." more than one person was heard to mutter as the group sped through them, laying the wounded on the tables. Harry had a tight grip on Ginny, and her breathing was shallow. Blood ran from a corner of her mouth, and he cradled her head while Madame Pomfrey rushed over with her potions and equipment.

"Out of the way, out of the way!" She ordered, and shooed them away from their friends."There's nothing for you to do here, and standing about hovering won't make them heal any faster! Shoo!" she said again, and Harry & Co. dejectedly left the room, walking out of the Hog's Head to stand with the majority of the rest of the living students, watching as their world burned. Harry was numb, and all he could think about was the beautiful girl lying on the table inside the bar; Ron and Hermione held eachother tightly, watching Harry watch his only home come crashing down.


	2. Chapter 2: Shadows in the Darkness

**Story Title: Harry Potter and the Fall**

**Rating: M  
**

**Author: Jaing**

**Contains magitech.**

**A/N: Also, note: Just as in the Harry Potter and the Dawn of Honor universe, my wizard-count is far higher than what we would assume to be the case from the books. Expect large battles - they serve a purpose.**

**Chapter 2: Shadows in the Darkness**

_**1200 hours, Zulu time; Area 7777, Massachusetts- **_

_"Settle down, and pay attention._

_This is the situation: Our intelligence sources tell us that the Magical Government of Britain has finally completely fallen to the forces of Tom Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort. Contrary to popular belief - hope, really - he did not, in fact, die seventeen years ago at the proverbial hands of Harry Potter._

_Approximately five weeks ago, Riddle assaulted the last bastion of British resistance - their school, Hogwarts. Somewhere between seven to eight hundred students were in attendance at the time, and from what we've gathered, five to six hundred of those were sent home for being underage and/or of the Slytherin House. That left the castle with around two hundred defenders, and they got reamed._

_We haven't gotten any sort of casualty estimate, but the odds weren't good to begin with. It seems that after the majority of the Slytherin students were removed from the building, they joined their parents in the assault on the castle. Not all of them, we believe, but most._

_However, given the lack of public boasting that Harry Potter and all the resistance died at the castle, we're operating on the assumption that they managed to flee the castle's complete destruction. This, Specter, is where your team comes in._

_We need to know whether or not the lights of freedom still burn in Britain, and we need to know it ASAP. The Army's Magical Division is mobilizing for combat, and they're going to need to know whether or not they'll have in-country aid or not. Additionally, reaching Potter and protecting him from harm will be a top priority, regardless of how impressive his record is or isn't in your eyes - and to mine, it is. The boy - no, the man- is a symbol, a living pair of upright middle fingers jammed into Riddle's eye sockets. We'll need that sort of symbol if reports of Voldemort's support on the Continent are true._

_You will be leaving aboard an MMC-130J transport in three hours, bound for Scotland. You mission is to recon the Hogwarts ruins and look for clues as to the whereabouts of the survivors, if any. The one MAGUS sweep we got of the area showed fairly heavy Death Eater patrols, probably doing the same thing you're about to be. Try to stay undetected, but if you must get into a fight, be as quiet as possible. We don't want them to know we were here._

_Dismissed."_

* * *

"So..."

"So."

"So."

"So... what? It seems pretty clear to me, folks. We're headed to England to figure out whether or not old Moldyshorts finally managed to off the Chosen One." The leader of the group said, raising an eyebrow to his team while stuffing a MOLLE pouch with round-ended canisters that faintly glowed a cool, electric blue.

"Oh no, it's not that, Echo. I'm thinking that was a general expression of 'Well then.'" piped up the snack-sized redhead on the other end of the room, checking the switching mechanism on a weapon that transformed from an under-handed weapon, to a rear-toggled one a la a machinegun, to an overhanded weapon like a rocket launcher. The snub nose of the weapon bristled with roughly two dozen wand tips, and she loaded an upsize version of Echo's canister into her weapon's breech. "See, people tend to do that when they want to know if their peers have precisely as little to contribute as they do."

"Speak for yourself, Lizzie; I'm distracted by thoughts of a beach in Cancun at the moment." rumbled a tall, dark-skinned man, older than the rest of them. Zach checked the feed from the drone in his hand to the visor on his eyes, the four stubby little broomtips that held it aloft and zoomed it around the battlefield dormant and folded into compact mode at this moment in time. His weapon was cradled across his lap, a revolver-barreled grenade launcher with a muzzle the size of a man's fist.

"Bah, Mexico. It's too hot and the internet there sucks. I prefer San Fran myself." muttered a tiny blonde with pixie hair. Her hands flew over the virtual keyboard of her magically-shielded, military grade tablet, wireless signals surging into the comm node on her hardpack, and from there to space. She took a moment to pause, and finished organizing her pack to her satisfaction, before closing the lid of her computer and sliding it into the armored storage slot specifically built for it. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a goodbye to make." she said, leaving the room. Echo's raised eyebrow tracked her every step of the way, before turning his attention to Zach, demanding an explanation.

True to form, he shrugged. "In case you haven't noticed, LT, she's a bit OCD about stuff like this. Thinks that if she doesn't do everything she does in the exact order and manner she does it, she'll die. At least, that's how she explains it to me."

Echo made a face that was somewhat a cross between amusement, bemusement and just pure "Huh", slapped a canister into the butt of his weapon, jerked the charging handle and watched the little, overbuilt, mass-produced core-wand light up a shifting array of colors. Pulling his wallet from his pocket, he picked his vest up, and withdrew a picture from behind his license. He looked at it a moment, brushed the picture across his lips and placed it into a pocket he'd sewn into the inside of his vest, directly over his heart, the same way he did at the start of every mission and exercise.

He supposed he could understand Sarah's habit of making a last call home.

* * *

Twelve hours later, Specter Team - officially known as Force Recon Team Sierra, Magical Division, US Army - was finally done with being shaked and rattled about on the inside of the magic-hardened MC-130J cargo plane, flying over Scotland at three hundred miles an hour.

"Remember, our mission is reconnaissance. Our job is to get in, and get out, without them ever knowing we were here." Echo said, his throat-mike picking his words up and transmitting them over the short-range, heavily encrypted radios his team wore. All of them wore helmets, sporting various optical arrays and a universal comm antenna, their faces masked with balaclavas for warmth against the high-altitude night chill. "We go in, we find evidence of the survival of Potter and the rest of the Hogwarts students, and we get out. Should we find said evidence, we go off and find them. If we don't, we start figuring out how to cause as much mayhem as possible for the Death Eaters. Copy?"

"Copy, Echo." Lisabelle.

"Gotcha, chief." Zach.

"Roger that." Sarah.

The massive bay doors opened behind Echo, and he grinned at his team mates, switching a digital toggle on the multifunction data display on his forearm, the featherweight unit packing more power than many full-sized computers sixty and seventy times its size. He began to disappear, the small array of wands in his hardpack coming to life and Disillusioning him. "Then let's go." he said, as the red wait light switched to green, and he stepped backwards off the edge of the door/ramp and into empty space.

His team followed, and the wind whipped around him as he fell freely through space, arms flat against his sides, streamlining himself as he flew towards a clearing in the huge forest that bordered the castle. As he closed, he flipped backwards, facing his feet towards the forest. He keyed his internal-systems channel with a grind of his teeth. "WITCH, deploy brakes." he said, calmly and clearly, and a pair of pods on either side of his hardpack began to glow as the magic-charged fluid inside them put power to the broom-ends that made up the brake system. He began to slow rapidly, coming to a sluggish hover over the clearing, and dropped the last few feet to the ground, rolling with the impact and coming up with his weapon raised, the Disillusionment charm flickering as the impact strained its ability to hide him.

One by one, his team mates skidded in beside him, the most graceful of whom was Zach, who had been doing this longer than they had. They spread out into a loose arrowhead formation with Zach at the tip, and began to press on into the Forbidden Forest's interior. Creatures of the night howled and shrieked and made all the billion and one unnerving sounds that such creatures make, and every member of the team had to focus on their surroundings even more than usual, if that were possible, because a magical forest like this contained things that no other forestland on earth did, almost all of which could and would attack a human.

"I have movement. One possible hostile, two o'clock, two hundred yards. Just passed into a thicket, might come out the other side." Zach noted, and moments later, surely enough, a bright thermal signature showed on Echo's visor, lighting the figure up like a candle.

Then it turned away from them.

"Uh, Zach, I do believe that's a centaur."

"I did say possible hostile, didn't I? Still applies, now that I think of it."

"Truth."

The team continued on, and by the time they reached the edge of the forest nearest the castle, the sun would rise in only an hour, and so Specter had to move quickly. Disengaging their charms to conserve magic, they silently jogged towards the castle's ruins, only to stop abruptly as a quartet of Death Eaters loomed in the darkness, and they re-engaged their charms as they took up positions among the brush and scattered trees. The Death Eaters were laughing among themselves, cackling and speaking of the things they had done here just weeks ago, the tales and excitement still fresh on their minds. Echo's trigger finger itched, and the outline of Sarah's rifle told him all he needed to know as she swept the barrel back and forth over the Eaters at head height.

But they stayed their fingers; the Death Eaters moved on, unawares of how close they had come to death, and Specter moved forward. They encountered six more patrols, each time with the same result - they had not realized Specter was even there. Echo was simply glad that there hadn't been any werewolves among them - even in human form, werewolves could have smelled the Americans, or heard the ultra-quiet whispers of their breath and the few fans that cooling their systems required. By the time they reached the ruin, after so many stops and starts, the sun was peeking over the mountains, and the sky began to turn a beautiful orange-pink in the direction of the sun.

Echo scaled the crumbling side of the East wing with a burst from his pack's broom-thrusters, landing inside a huge hole torn in the building's side, surveying what lay within. The corpses of Death Eaters and magical animals alike were strewn about the inside of the building like some child's obscene ragdolls, interspersed with the bodies of the students and adults who had died defending the castle from all comers. Echo bowed his head a moment, fighting back bile, and then bowed his head deeper in respect, before moving on, searching the upper portions of the castle.

They searched the castle for hours, only occasionally talking over their WITCH systems, discussing a few notable finds.

"Found a student. Slytherin. Not dead, amazingly. Looks to be under a stasis field, maybe. Good lord, but she made a mess of these Death Eaters..."

"There's a bunch of traps on the second floor. Beware the instant swamp."

"Roger, bring that student to me, Sarah. We'll extract her when we leave."

"Hey, everyone - I've found something on the seventh floor you all will want to see."

When they all gathered at the seventh floor, Lizzie decloaked and showed them what she had been talking about. "See this door?" she said, pointing to the door that had appeared out of nowhere. "This wasn't here the first two times I combed this corridor. I was trying to figure out why all the Death Eaters' bodies seemed to be headed in this direction, and well... I think the reason's through here."

Echo shrugged. It was as good a place to start as any.

The four stacked up on either side of the door, and the two nearest pulled it outwards as the rear two surged through the gap - into a room entirely composed of hammocks and school House wall hangings of the various houses. A painting on the far end of the room stood ajar, revealing a secret passageway behind it.

"I think we've found our escape route."


	3. Chapter 3: Something Wicked

**Story Title: Harry Potter and the Fall**

**Rating: M**

**Author: Jaing**

**Contains magitech.**

**A/N: **

** notreallymyname: It's not a crossover, and yes it is militarized. I actually just had an amazing plot bunny that is entirely too juicy to pass up. The militarization, as the large number of witches and wizards, serves a definite purpose. The Specter team is Alpha team from Harry Potter and the Dawn of Honor, as right now I'm just entering/rewriting the first chapters. And I do fully intend to try to finish HPatDoH out.**

**Thanks for the reviews!**

**_Chapter 3: Something Wicked This Way Comes_**

**__**Specter Team filed through the door, eyeballing the room from behind the sights of their weapons. Zach took up rear guard and shut it behind them; suddenly, a burst of static snowed their visors out, forcing them to remove them and rely on the Mark One eyeball, standard issue, human, two each. Sarah pulled her helmet off, and pulled her tablet from her hardpack, jabbing uselessly at the screen with a gloved finger.

"Damn it, none of my equipment is working, I'll bet. There must be something about this room that sets it apart from the rest of this place."

"What, other than the ability to pop in and out of existence at will?" Lizzie quipped, setting her weapon on the floor, pulling out her wand. "_Lumos!_" she intoned, and her wand shot a beam of light off through the tunnel behind the picture. When the light stopped reflecting back, she sighed. "So much for the answer being close at hand."

Echo chuckled. "You ever expected this to be easy, Demo?" he said, sticking his head into the passage. "Echolocation would be useful right now... or sonar..."

"Echolocation?" came the snide comment from the general direction of Sarah.

"...shut up." With that, Echo raised his rifle and pulled the trigger, only to find that whatever was messing with their electronics was playing merry hell with the firing system of the wand-rifle; he took a page from Lizzie's book and slung his rifle, pulling his wand from his hip holster. The other two followed suit, and soon they were heading stealthily down the tunnel, Sarah in the lead, her wands raised, one shining a brilliant beam of light before them, the other ready to send curses anywhere they were needed.

Their bootsteps echoed off the close walls, and the tunnel seemed to stretch forever. Just as Lizzie was about to ask how much longer they thought it would take, the tunnel began to rise; slowly at first, and then more and more sharply until a portal door identical to the one they had entered from, but from the back side, appeared before them. Sarah signaled for them to halt with a raised fist, and the three behind her stooped down, wands raised to cover each other and her while she carefully, gently pushed the door inward – the door which turned out to be a painting of a girl on the outer side. Sarah stepped through, and, wand raised, cleared the room, before beckoning them forward.

Their rifles glowed and fizzled back to life, their electronics waking up from their interference-induced slumber.

"Well, that was ann-" Zach began to say, before finding a rather long and… sturdy-looking wand practically up his nose, and his eyes followed the wand and the hand that held it up to the face of the man holding it, taller than he by a good half-foot and sporting an epic grey beard.

"Who are you?" the man asked menacingly, in a gruff voice very like his late brother's.

"Dumbledore?" Lizzie said, blinking, even as she snapped her sidearm to bear on the old man.

"I didn't ask you who I was, child – I asked who _you _were, and now another question – what are you doing in my bar?"

Echo took in their surroundings – the bar counter, the dusty bottles and grimy mugs; the stools and dilapidated booths – at a glance. "Stand down!" he barked, lowering his own weapon. "Specter Team, United States Army, Magical Special Operations. And you are… Aberforth Dumbledore, I presume, given that Albus is dead."

"Don't presume too much, kid. But yes, in this instance you're right. I am, in fact, Aberforth. You didn't answer my second question – what are you doing here?"

"We're searching for survivors of the attack on Hogwarts. The US is entering this war to stop Voldemort, and we need their help. Why do we need the help of a bunch of kids? Manpower, their experience against him, and their knowledge of the land." Echo said, blowing past the obvious question without blinking it.

"I… see. You won't find them anywhere hereabouts, however. They lit off southwest almost before the castle stopped crumbling. What in the name of Merlin are those things you all are carrying? And wearing, for that matter…"

"Wand guns, body armor. Simple stuff, but I don't have time to explain it… were the survivors going by foot, broom, Apparition…?"

"Foot and broom." Aberforth said, face grim. "Apparition does more harm than it's worth over long distances, with the injuries most of them were sporting."

Echo winced. "What kinds of injuries are we talking here?"

"Cuts, lacerations, great gaping holes in kids… severed limbs, dark curses… the usual run of filth that those bloody Death Eaters will use against people who can't fight them."

Sarah paled. "Dear Lord… how did they even get out of here?"

"As I understand is, they used the _locomotor mortis _charm profusely… and a lot of painkiller." Aberforth said, eyes hardening about that last bit. "The last of them moved out of the area about two minutes before the Death Eaters made a sweep of Hogsmeade, looking for runners. They didn't find any."

Echo sighed, slightly relieved, although the possible medical nightmare they would face if they found the students was truly frightening. While he had been briefed on the castle's staff and knew that Madame Pomfrey was likely to have escaped and was a fantastic Healer, one woman, even with aides, could only do so much for certain injuries.

"Thank you, Master Dumbledore. If things are as bad as you say, we need to hit the road." He said to the old man, offering his hand for Aberforth to shake. The old man took the offered hand and shook it with a grip that was surprisingly strong for his seemingly advanced age.

"You do. It would take you a week at a dead sprint to catch them, however. But, I think I can help you there." He said, and went to the coat closet next to the bar, rummaging through it, and drew out four Nimbus 2001s, a broom that was still high-class a decade after its' introduction. "Some of the students left their things here in the panic to get out. You would think they would take something like these with them, but I'd imagine they had greater problems at the time… but perhaps you can return them to their owners, in due time." He said, handing the racing brooms to the team. "Find them, and find them quickly."

**_Near Skerries, Ireland - _**

The weary refugees rested in a valley camp, eating through what little they had in the way of food while Madame Pomfrey and her chosen assistants swarmed about the wounded and dying, working miracles as a matter of everyday business. Even five weeks after the fact, many of those injured in the Battle of Hogwarts were not effectively healed, mainly due to a lack of medical supplies.

In the centermost tent, a shrill alarm cried out and was suddenly silenced. Harry rubbed his eyes irritably, glancing at the clock next to his sleeping bag. It had been one month since their forced retreat from Hogwarts, and they were still running. A dozen small skirmishes had harried their numbers, and he hurt every time he thought of the friends he'd lost – and of the fire-haired girl he loved, still laying on one of Pomfrey's makeshift hospital beds. _You'd think I'd be used to this by now,_ he thought, and he laughed - an ugly, humorless sound.

He sat up, stretching out the kinks that one inevitably gets after sleeping on rocky ground. Harry tossed off the top half of his sleeping bag, and got out, stepping into his shoes before walking around the camp, prodding everyone awake with his foot in the half-light just before dawn.

"Come on, we've got to get a move on, or the Death Eaters will catch up with us again." he said to no one and everyone at the same time. That got them up, if irritably, as none wanted another clash while they were still licking their wounds from the last fight. He walked over to the field hospital, pushing aside the flap of the tent, and into the smell of antiseptic, healing potions, and blood. He'd discovered that blood had a metallic smell, like wet, rusted iron.

_That's what we've become,_ he thought._ Too strong to break completely, and too weak to hold._ His thoughts were interrupted when Madam Pomfrey walked up to him, the older lady clearing her throat gently, her voice hoarse from overuse. "I know why you're here, and the situation hasn't changed much since last you visited this tent. Miss Weasley shows signs of improvement, and Professor McGonagall is awake now. I'm still having trouble with Mr. Finnigan and Miss Patil; they can't seem to shake the dizziness from the Stunners they took on patrol yesterday. Most unusual." she said, but a note in her voice caused him to look directly at her, quirking his eyebrow.

She paused a moment, gathering her breath. "I'm running out of potions, Master Potter, and if I can't get ahold of a new supply, I fear that our worst cases may not survive much longer. We'll have to start diverting the medicines to those we know we can save, and not merely those we hope we can." she said, eyes lowered, causing Harry to wonder about how he'd been raised to the position of impromptu leader.

_It's not like I have anything special going for me,_ he thought, _I mean, Hermione would be better at this than I am! She's the administrator type, not me._ But there was nothing he could do about it. If it was what the others needed, so be it. But as soon as he could, he knew he'd be passing the mantle to someone else. Until then, however...

"I'll see what I can do about that, then… we'll have to get creative. Diagon Alley is closed to us, and most people are too fearful of what could happen to their families to help us." He said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It probably means we'll have to fight for what we can't find around us, and that's a lot of things." He said, releasing his nose and sighing.

He turned and walked to Ginny, laying his hand on her cheek while his thumb stroked the starburst of scars across her cheekbone from where a shard of blasted masonry had scored her face. She slept on, but he liked to think that he saw the ghost of a smile touch the corners of her lips.

After a while, he left the tent, and his eyes were stormy.

**_Trailing the Survivors: Crossing the Irish Sea –_**

Echo was devoutly wishing that any of his team had hailed from Ireland – they could have Apparated and saved themselves this particular joy.

The four of them raced low across the wave tops, the air above the sea on the warm side, but with the speed of their passage, each spray of salt water was like a thousand frozen needles pecking at their exposed skin, shemaghs flapping in the wind.

Echo tried in vain to press himself lower to the broom, flattening himself as much as possible, urging his Nimbus to new speeds. Sarah lead the group, her small size and minimal weight serving her well, even with all of their gear added on. Zach brought up the rear, his imposing bulk posing a severe problem for the air attempting to get out of his way; meanwhile, Lizzie puttered along next to Echo in their impromptu diamond formation.

"Must go faster, must go faster, go go go go go…" Echo muttered under his breath, forgetting his comms were on.

"You've been obsessed with that line ever since you watched _Independence Day_."

"Can it, Sergeant."

"Yessir."

The four figures silently pressed on over the ocean, the coast of northern Ireland looming before them in the half-light before long.

**_Skerries, Ireland – _**

Harry crept along inside the town, wand held before him, Hermione's breath hot on his ear as they crouched under the Invisibility cloak, pressed closely together in an effort to ensure they weren't seen.

"We could have stuck one or the other of us inside that bag of yours, Hermione."

"Interesting idea, bad execution… unless your shoulders can fit through a five-inch opening?"

"Point taken. Still, what about a backpack? It would probably be big enough."

"Ssssh! I hear someone." She said, swatting him on the shoulder, and they melted into a corner, watching from the shadows as a pair of patrolling Death Eaters strolled past them, guard utterly lax. They passed without incident, and the two sneaking Hogwarts students continued down the road, sticking close to the shadows and corners of houses. There was a small magical hospital near the outskirts of the town, and they fully intended to reach it. The main problem was that the Death Eaters were frequent customers of the hospital's potions-making services.

Harry spoke again. "So, we get in, dump everything we can into your bag, and sneak out without anyone being the wiser until we leave?"

"Basically, Harry… although I don't know whether or not we'll be able to pull it off. I'm not exactly a master thief."

"The twins are, and they approved."

"True."

From then they walked in silence, having to duck into dark corners seven more times between there and the hospital, and when they arrived, it at first didn't appear before them, but after a few moments it, like Number 12, Grimmauld Place, appeared before them, squeezing itself out from between a pair of normal-looking houses on either side of it.

They waited, and waited, and after what seemed like an hour, a person came out of it, and that was when they slipped in behind them, the door shutting on them. The brightly-lit interior of the hospital smelled of flowers with just the barest hint of antiseptic to belie the function of the building, and Assistant Healers and nurses bustled about on their rounds and errands.

A bored voice to their right called out to a purple-robed, smallish, bespectacled young man hurrying through the room. "Doctor Forsythe needs two bottles of Skele-Gro and a vial of Sleeping Drought for room sixty-four, Abernathy…"

Taking that as their cue, Harry and Hermione wove their combined way through the foot traffic and followed the young man down several flights of stairs, and it was all Harry could do to keep quiet, silently cursing the tendency of magical dwellings and buildings to be far bigger on the inside than on the out.

But when they arrived, it was a gold mine.

Shelf after shelf after shelf of medicines greeted them, and it was all Harry could do not to chuckle. They waited, and Abernathy gathered his required medicines before bustling out, at which point Hermione broke from under the Cloak, casting a locking spell on the door, smiling triumphantly.

"Well done, Harry! We made it." She said, and immediately began to (gently) shovel everything in sight into her bag's cotton-filled insides, Harry at her side. Before long, nearly all the shelves were absolutely bare, and they began to push ingredients in as well. But before they could completely ransack the storage room, someone tried to open the door.

"Quick!" Harry whispered, and they abandoned their work, snapping up the (thankfully Featherweight-charmed) bag and ducking under the cloak, just in time for the door to open under the influence of a muttered _Alohomora._

"What in the name of Merlin?" gasped the lady Healer at the door, looking about dumbstruck. And then it dawned on her; she began to shout. "HELP! WE'VE BEEN ROBBED!" She continued to carry on like that, yelling as she ran up the stairs to the main hospital area, Harry and Hermione hot on her heels. A pair of Death Eaters, who had been in the lobby area, ran past them, nearly slamming into Hermione on their way to the stairway door. The two hurried out the front door at the tail end of a general exodus from the area – no one wanted to be around when the Death Eaters started "questioning" people.

"So much for stealth!" Hermione muttered as she cast a Disillusionment charm on herself and Harry, shoving the Cloak into her bag, and they vaulted a fence, sprinting full-out for the outskirts of town. Behind them, the Dark Mark went up, and an unearthly wail courtesy of a Caterwauling Charm blasted their ears as their Disillusionment charms went down. Harry pulled her into the shadow of a house, tapping each of their heads again to reestablish the charm even as the sharp cracks of Apparition sounded around them, boxing them in.

"Bollocks. In!" he said, pulling open the house's side door, the structure thankfully empty, and they made their way to the second story, watching through the windows as the Death Eaters searched for them.

"IT HAS TO BE POTTER!" they could hear one shout. "HE USED HIS BLASTED INVISIBILITY CLOAK! FIND THEM!"

"I'd reckon he's a tad pissed."

"You don't say, Harry? I'd never have guessed…"

More cracks sounded off outside, heralding the arrival of dozens of Death Eaters, and after a short while there was a feeling like a shimmering of air and energy. "Anti-apparition charms…" Hermione said, and after another look out of the window Hermione sighed, casting a Patronus. She placed her wand's tip to her temple, drawing out a long, silvery strand of memory, touching the memories to her Patronus. "We are surrounded, with vital medical supplies. The Death Eaters have set up anti-apparition charms. We need help." She told it, and the silver otter looped in the air, flying off in the direction of the camp, summoning aid.

Twenty minutes later came the response, from a bespectacled silver tabby cat. "We are coming."


End file.
